Caraid
by CassandraD
Summary: Rating to be safe. Archer/T'Pol moment.
1. Default Chapter

Title: Caraid Author: CassandraD Disclaimer: I own all charaqcters, and if you buy that I'll sell you the Golden Gate Bridge too.  
  
Captain's Ready Room  
  
Jon Archer sat silently working on reports.  
  
Breoop  
  
At the sound Jon looked up in relief.  
  
'Enter' He called keeping his voice neutral.  
  
As Phlox stepped through the door the look on his face immediately made Jon worried. Phlox's face was a portrait of worry and left no doubt he was the bearer of bad news.  
  
With a blink Jon's mind returned to the present. The Enterprise was hurtling through space in excess of warp five, but Jon Archer knew all the equations, had crunched the numbers time and again. Their speed, even if they could maintain it, would not be fast enough. This 'Pon Farr' was killing his science officer and there was nothing Phlox could do.  
  
He could hardly believe what little Phlox had been able to tell him. He knew how he would feel if she died. He had known since the High Command tried to take her away. She had trusted him to have her back, he had told her he'd always be there if she needed someone she could trust. T'Pol's condition was critical. He had only one option left, even if she would hate him for it. Jonathan Archer knew he couldn't live if she died. All these thoughts ran through his mind as he stood in front of the door to T'Pol's quarters.  
  
His fingers tapped in the sequence that would override the lock allowing him entrance. The door swooshed open and there stood T'Pol, beautiful to his eyes, in the middle of her ruined quarters. T'Pol's few possessions scattered and padds littered the floor, the candle burning a remnant of failed meditation attempts.  
  
Her eyes had locked on him the moment he entered. A predator's gaze instead of a friends. He had avoided looking at her. The door closed behind him, he knew he would not, could not, back out.  
  
"T'Pol," as if his speaking her name had been a signal she approached, her hands reaching out and running over his body, clothed in nothing more than a t-shirt and workout shorts. A soft animalistic sound issuing from T'Pol's throat.  
  
"I know what's happening to you." He spoke in a soft almost pleading tone, as his hand caressed her face in a reverent manner. His eyes locked on hers in a stare he hoped communicated how he loved her. He stepped infinitesimally forward pulling T'Pol into a searing kiss. As their lips broke apart so they could remove each other's clothes he whispered in her ear, "Please don't hate me." His mind finishing, 'I would die without you, caraid.' 


	2. 2

Awaking in the darkness Jonathan Archer knew he was alone. His mind had been expecting T'Pol to leave but his heart still cried out. Quickly he dressed and silently returned to his own quarters. Showered and in a fresh uniform Jon stepped off the turbolift onto the bridge thirty minutes later. At her station completely unemotional stood T'Pol. Instinctively his eyes sought hers, her eyes which he had learned to read through all T'Pol's control, eyes that had only hours before been utterly feral and open were shuttered and Jon knew the walls separating them were higher than they had ever been before.  
  
Trip saw the pain flash in Jon's eyes as he looked at T'Pol. As he looked even Trip could tell that T'Pol was even more separated from them than she had ever been before, And that separation was hurting Jon.  
  
As the interminable hours of the shift passed Jonathan Archer found his eyes drawn again and again to T'Pol, hoping for some sign from her. When the shift was finally over Jon found himself alone in the turbolift with Trip. Jon leaned against the turbolift wall.  
  
"Computer, Halt turbolift." called Trip. The look in his eyes communicating exactly what he wanted to talk to Jon about.  
  
"Not here!" Jon hissed through his teeth with a negative shake of his head and called, "Computer, Resume turbolift."  
  
Not another word was spoken as the turbolift doors swooshed open and Jonathan Archer strode quickly down the corridor. He didn't look back, he knew without looking that half a step behind him Trip was following. He knew that Trip could tell something was wrong, and Jon knew he would tell Trip if he asked. And the look Trip had given him was definitely asking.  
  
In Jon's quarter Trip sat in a chair across from the bunk facing where Jon sat looking resigned. Finally after what felt like hours but in reality was only a few minutes Jon took a deep breath.  
  
"Let me say what I have to say. No interruption, okay," He spoke with a serious tone, his eyes locked with Trip's. Trip nodded his agreement to the condition and Jon continued. "T'Pol wasn't sick. It seems that story about Vulcans mating once every seven years is partially true. Every seven years Vulcan's go through something called 'Pon Farr'. Their body goes into hormonal overdrive, creating an imbalance that kills them if they don't mate." He looked up from his hands realizing he had been staring at them as he spoke. As he looked at Trip he hoped his friend could put the pieces together.  
  
Trip blinked and tried to swallow his mouth suddenly dry. He knew he had to ask, had to make sure he hadn't misunderstood. "Jon. Your sayin' ya mated wi' T'Pol, right?"  
  
Jonathan Archer's only response was an affirmative nod.  
  
"I've thought for awhile ya loved her." Trip didn't know what to say. "But I'm here to talk if you need too."  
  
"Trip, I've had her, she is mine. She's the other half of my soul. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to do something to bind her to me forever. I want something, anything, to make it so she has to be with me 'til death do us part'. And that need is scaring the hell out of me." 


	3. 3

Author's Note: I was informed you couldn't review unless signed in. That is fixed now. Sorry. Thank Lattelady for telling me.  
  
Jon Archer sat at the computer terminal in his quarters thinking about the events of the last four months. For over a month and a half he and Trip had watched water polo and talked late into the night on everything from the games to old heartaches. Then the "Never Ending Test of Patience" as Trip liked to call it happened.  
  
He couldn't help the slight smile that touched his lips as he remembered Trip's rant after being found. Once safely in Jon's quarters, cleaned up and drinking root beer he became very clear on his opinion of The First Monarch.  
  
"I'm tellin' ya Cap'n she complained 'bout everythin'." Stated in the tone of the eternally put upon. Jon's only response was a sympathetic look.  
  
"Honestly. She complained 'bout the escape pod we used to get away, 'bout the only planet we could land on, 'bout helping to gather firewood so we wouldn't freeze, 'bout me taken off part of my uniform. Ya saw me! I was decently covered!"  
  
"Yes, Trip. You were wearing more than most people swim in." Jon responded conciliatorily. And so the conversation continued like this for a good half hour before turning into a typical guys night.  
  
Surprisingly by the time they had to seek refuge in the catwalk to weather the Neutrionic Wave Jon found that his relationship with T'Pol was almost back to normal. The almost being a new ability, he noted. Jon found he could read T'Pol with an unerring accuracy and seemed to always know where she was, as if they were somehow connected. He had waited for T'Pol to come to him on her own. Waited to learn if she felt this connection as well. But he could not wait any longer.  
  
Every crewman who saw their Captain as he walked through the corridors wisely cleared a path and remained silent. If later asked they could only have said that Captain Jonathan Archer had the aura of a man whose journey was not to be impeded. As Jon reached T'Pol's quarters there was no hesitation as once again he typed in his code to open the door.  
  
As he stepped through the door his eyes met T'Pol's, registering the concealed surprise at his audacity. Rising gracefully from her seated position in front in front of her meditation candle on the floor.  
  
"Captain?" the question of why he barged in apparent in her tone.  
  
"You know why I'm her T'Pol." stated in a tone that left no argument.  
  
"I do not." She spoke, dismissing him by tone and action as she turned away from him. Which he completely ignored, stepping quickly across the space between them and spinning T'Pol to face him.  
  
His hold firm on T'Pol's left upper arm Jon's free right hand gathered the from of her loose top, pulling it up to revel her belly. Jon's eyes locked on T'Pol's as his hand caressed the rounded swell that had not been there when he made love to her.  
  
"You know what this means T'Pol."  
  
"Yes." Jon doubted anyone else hearing T'Pol would have heard the fear in her voice.  
  
"Then tell me!" Jon's voice was soft but the command was clear. T'Pol said nothing.  
  
"Tell me why you've been sick, why you can't stomach anything but soup, why you've been tired all the time."  
  
As Jon recited her symptoms T'Pol knew from the tone of his voice that as humans said 'he had put two and two together and his math was excellent'. There was no point in denying what he already knew.  
  
"I'm pregnant."  
  
Author's Note: It's a boy. Name suggestions and information on pregnancy please. 


End file.
